AXAMENTA — Nox Draconis Argenti (review)

AXAMENTA — Nox Draconis Argenti album cover EP · 1999 · Melodic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
1/5 ·
UMUR
"Nox Draconis Argenti" is the debut release by Belgian, Zwijndrecht, Antwerp based extreme metal act Axamenta (if you don´t count the two demos "Echoes (1995)" and "Into a Dream (1997)" which preceded it). "Nox Draconis Argenti" is an EP and the playing time is 28:01 minutes so in terms of quantity it´s well worth the money. The EP was independently released in November 1999.

The music on the album is symphonic and melodic black metal with lots of orchestral keyboard arrangements. Listening to the bombastic and symphonic classical intro "The Revenant's Dirge" almost led me to believe that this was a side project by the guys in Rhapsody of Fire. Throughout the album the keyboards are very dominant in the soundscape. The vocals are predominantly raspy black metal type singing but there are some clean female singing too. Now I mentioned that the music on "Nox Draconis Argenti" is black metal but the keyboards have a tendency to give the music a vanilla power metal touch that unfortunately ends up draining the music of energy and edge. And believe me it´s not like there´s much energy there to drain in the first place. The music is very generic to begin with. Nothing here haven´t been tried at least a hundred times with more success by artists like Dimmu Borgir or Old Man´s Child.

The musicianship aren´t too impressive either but the the most serious issue with "Nox Draconis Argenti" is the lack of power and memorable hooks in the music. The sound production is also below standard and "Nox Draconis Argenti" most of all sounds like a demo recording. The keyboards are too high in the mix and the raspy vocals are too low. The guitars sound thin and weak and the drums sound muddy. Upon conclusion this is not a good start for Axamenta and a 1 star (20%) rating is warranted for this generally poor quality release. Fortunately for Axamenta there were better things to come on future releases.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Unearthly Litanies of Despair Death Metal
ENGULFED
Buy this album from MMA partners
It Beckons Us All....... Black Metal
DARKTHRONE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Death Is Not The End Doom Metal
GLOSSA
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Way Forward Sludge Metal
BLACK TUSK
Buy this album from MMA partners
Till Aska Atmospheric Sludge Metal
WALK THROUGH FIRE
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 2 days ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 2 days ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 3 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed